NORTHERN ARIZONA: Wonderland by Day…and by Starlight
Written: Apr 05 '01 (Updated Apr 06 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A Mystical place where the sun does nice things to your head.
Cons: Endless visions...
The Bottom Line: Northern Arizona has a spell all its own. Follow the Mother Road into dreamland.
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| Ed.Williamson's Full Review: Arizona |
"Well I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona…such a fine sight to see…It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed-Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me…" (The Eagles, Take It Easy)
Northern Arizona is one of those magical places that inspire songs and images that stretch your senses and deepen your soul. From the Eagles all the way back to the Anasazi Indians, this is a place where the rainbows and the shadows fill the myths and stories with the beauty and the strangeness of the land.
I have been drawn to Northern Arizona for years like a moth to a flame. I know it probably all goes back to those ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazines someone unloaded on us when I was about 15 years old. Have you ever seen that magazine? The landscape photography by greats like David Muench and others was dazzling to me as a kid. Just looking at how those pictures were composed was worth a course in landscape photography from any school in the country. They made Arizona beautiful. Especially Northern Arizona.
It all goes on along Route 66, now I-40, for me. The Mother Road, the Mother of my Old West dreams , the ones that many of us boomer kids who grew up on Hopalong Cassidy and John Wayne had. We saw a saguaro cactus in the background and immediately we were in Home Country. We mellowed out while the Sons of the Pioneers sang "Ghost Riders In The Sky" somewhere in the back of our minds.
But ah, Northern Arizona, heading out of California going east. On the Mother Road. Doesn't matter whether you're on a Harley Davidson, in the Family Sedan with the windows rolled down, or an 18 Wheeler highballin' it, here we are, pilgrim. Route 66 headin' east.
Start with the Grand Canyon. You could spend a lifetime there and never get tired of it. It is a cathedral of carved rock so vast it sends waves through your soul.
Go over to Flagstaff, or "Flag" as the locals call it. What a great thing it must be to live in this town. State and national parks all around, Forest, snow in the winter, skiing, Northern Arizona University. This is a lovely little town.
Head east, and go to Winslow, the one in the song. I wonder if there really are still any flatbed Fords in that town or of Glenn and they boys were just making it up. It doesn't matter, this is a cool town.
A bit further on, Go see the Meteor Crater, for heaven's sake. This is one of the best preserved meteor craters in the world, and what a wonder it is to look at this crater and imagine all the other meteors that have…and one day will again…smash into terra not-so firma.
Further east, there are two geological wonders you should take time out to visit: the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert.
The Petrified Forest is just about what it sounds like: a place where the trees were all turned into stone. They are all fallen, but it is an unearthly place where the impossible is real. Then drive on over to the Painted Desert and see the colors in the earth like giant paint pots spilled out, dazzling you with different colors.
A bit north of here is Monument Valley, backdrops for countless Western Movies, and a place synonymous in cinematic folklore with "The Old West". This, too, is an evocative (and somewhat phallic symbolic) landscape.
Oh yeah. Lest I leave it out, there is something else here. A sort of cultural icon, a harbinger of the old vacation-days when the all -American Family Car Trip To California was still in vogue. For about a hundred miles in either direction there are these signs along the highway. "STOP AND SEE...'THE THING!'! SO AMAZING YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!!!" All my life I have wanted to stop and see whatever in the world it is that THE THING actually is, or was. First my Dad wouln't stop and let me go see. Then others in my family didn't want to stop and go see. I still am curious. THE THING. Hmmm. It's probably just a beer bottle reputed to have been left there by Billy the Kid or something. Or maybe a picture of Raquel Welch as a teenage ballerina or in her "1,000,000 Years B.C." fur bikini or something. I may never know. More than likely it was a dead jackrabbit sewn together with an armadillo with deer's antlers glued on. Over at the side, a chuckling old coot with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth laughing at the rubes as he collected dollar bills from them. Now whatever THE THING was, it is now dead and its soul has gone to animal heaven where it is free, freeeeeee,... free of animal roadside exhibit exploiters. Free of man's world. maybe it can become a constellation of stars in the sky over Arizona at night. Anyway, I'm still curious to know what THE THING is, or was. When I'm an old man, maybe I'll drive back there and find out.
Back out on the road. The Mother Road.
I know there is a lot to see here in Northern Arizona, but the thing that always gets me is how it makes you feel. I just feel different driving through here. Maybe it's the fact that the land here has so many special and different things to show you and that opens your mind up and you start to think of other things.
Yes, at night, the heavens are filled with stars in the Northern Arizona Night. After all you have seen, you feel a part of the great wheel of the cosmos, a part of the great mandella of the desert.
"And I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight…with a billion stars all around…." (The Eagles, Peaceful Easy Feeling)
There is a spell to Northern Arizona. If that is your destination, give it time to catch you. You will never be the same again.
*****
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
Ed.Williamson
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Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
Reviews written: 607
Trusted by: 315 members
About Me:
Fight 'em till Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice!
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